Saturday, May 18, 2013
ON WRITING
Since I write a lot I am, by implication, very interested in writing itself.
Or should be.
I really liked this article on the dictionary, the meaning of words and the utility of being able to write beyond the dictionary meanings.
The Role of a Dictionary Today
Mundanity is the curse of an interesting blog or, for that matter, a food label or a line of copy in an ad. A come hither look is needed for the reader's attention.
What is needed is a stick. Something to stiffen the line, the copy.
To bring interest to the page.
I try for that but it is difficult. Trying makes it a labor. Better not to try and let it fly.
First, my writing history is quasi-academic. I wrote training manuals for years. No allowance for poetry. Literally thousands of people would read these things and take explicit action in their lives based on what they read. It had to be taken seriously.
It also had to be taken readably. We lived by the Fogg, the readablity measures.
Every day was a day of conflict with a copy editor and the copy editor's questions.
I sometimes write from a crouch position.
Check that sentence. It just came out. Is "crouch" the write / right word?
I will not look it up. I am just happy to have had it come through my own editor, through my fingers and on to the page.
My mind's editor wants to modify it now. To put in the word "defensive" so the reader will not have to work to get the picture. But then it would be wrong because that kind of crouch is not the only kind of crouch I have in mind.
I want a picture to form. The more explicit I become the less evocative.
I like to, on occasion, invent a word. Some normal usage twisted.
No example leaps to mind. It is usually a "found" word. Another through the brain into the fingers out to the keyboard event. A surprise.
Fancy words. Out. That is not what we are talking about here. If I have to look it up it is probably too fancy although I do have a rather wide vocabulary. But it is possible to make a common every day word dance a bit. Used slightly out of rhythm. A bounce. A chance mis-spelling.
There is the inhibition of performance. This is not improv. I can take what comes out of my fingers and just let it go. Like throwing mud up on the wall and watching it slide off. But that is something else entirely and is probably a matter of poetry.
I am currently reading a kind of text book by Phillip Lopate on essay writing. He doesn't spend much time, so far, on word choice. Maybe before I am done.
I mention it to illustrate that somewhere, somehow, there is always a reading, a thought, a consideration of style in my life. A book, an article like this one. Words. How to use them more effectively.
The worst hurdle of all is being self conscious about my writing. And this blog post is not helping.
Time to quit. Point made. Move on.
Oh. Dictionaries. I rarely use them to find a word for my writing. I use them a lot to understand others' writing. I keep finding new things. The actual meaning of "penultimate" for example. A recent discovery that I have been using the word incorrectly all my writing or reading life. Not that it comes up that often. But it is a rare bird and fun to use. If I can, actually, understand it correctly.
